130 BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



or boggy ground, watching for small quadrupeds and batrachians, which 

 constitute its principal fare. 



Like other birds of this genus, the Bed-shouldered Hawk nests in 

 trees, usually in April and May in this locality. The eggs, two to four 

 in number, are very similar to those of the Bed-tail, but smaller. Young 

 birds, which are known to many as Winter Falcons, are, according to 

 my experience, much more frequently met with than full-plumaged 

 adults. Nuttall remarks that this hawk lives principally on frogs, and 

 probably insects and cray-fish in the winter. Gentry tells us that the 

 food of the young consists of fragments of quadrupeds, besides an im- 

 mense number of young grasshoppers and beetles. In my examinations 

 of fifty-seven of these hawks which have been captured in Pennsylvania, 

 forty-three showed field-mice, some few other small quadrupeds, grass- 

 hoppers and insects, mostly beetles ; nine revealed frogs and insects ; 

 two, small birds, remains of small mammals and a few beetles? two, 

 snakes and portions of frogs. The gizzard of one bird contained a few 

 hairs of a field-mouse and some long black hair which appeared very 

 much like that of a skunk. The bird on dissection gave a very decided 

 odor of skunk. In two of these hawks, shot in Florida, I found in one 

 portions of a small catfish, and in the other remains of a small mammal 

 and some few coleopterous insects (beetles). 



Buteo latissimus (WiLS.). 



Broad-winged Hawk. 



DESCRIPTION (Plate 16, Fig. 1). 



Length of female about 17 ; extent about 36 ; tail about 1\ inches. 



Adult. Upper parts umber-brown, and many feathers edged with rusty or 

 whitish ; tail crossed by three black and two white bands, and narrow white tip, 

 lower parts white or yellowish white, variously streaked and spotted with rusty. 

 Young are duller, showy dark cheek patches ; tajl, grayish-brown, with whitish 

 tips and crossed with five or six indistinct dusky bands; lower parts similar to 

 adult but paler and spotted or streaked with black and dusky. 



Habitat. Eastern North America, from New Brunswick and the Saskatchewan 

 region to Texas and Mexico, and thence southward to Central America, northern 

 South America, and the West Indies. 



Of the genus Buteo, in this section, the Broad-winged is the least 

 abundant. It is a native and resident. The movements in the air of 

 this hawk are easy and beautifully graceful. When in quest of food, its 

 flight is in circles. At times, when circling, like the Sparrow Hawk, it 

 will stand for an instant beating the air, and then descend with great 

 velocity upon its prey, which it secures, not in its descent, but as it is 

 on the rise. I have on more than one occasion witnessed this species 



